


Those Under My Command

by Leonawriter



Series: Commander Strife [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Canon-Typical Violence, Cloud has somehow adopted these kids, Gen, References to Sephiroth's childhood, Wutai War, and damn if he isn't going to dad them somehow or other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-16
Packaged: 2019-03-05 01:08:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376907
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leonawriter/pseuds/Leonawriter
Summary: The plus side to being of a higher rank in Shinra's army than Sephiroth for the time being was that even when he couldn't avoid being in the now-teenager's company, at least Cloud was the one in charge.Small mercies, when he realises that the cause of his nightmares really is just a kid on a battlefield.





	1. Chapter 1

Cloud had normally been in command of Genesis' forces, something that had sat uneasily upon him at first, but after the first weird meeting where he'd looked around for an ex-SOLDIER First in a tattered red coat and recently cut but still sort of wild-looking hair, he'd needed a minute to recognise that the scrawny redhead in Second's reds with an attitude problem  _was_ Genesis. It was easy to fall into habits, but just as easy to forget, and treat the kid more like Denzel or any of the other kids he'd started to get to know after Geostigma had been healed by Aerith's rain.

He'd only had one mission of sorts with Angeal under his command so far, and he'd reminded Cloud of Zack - enough that sometimes, only seeing the sword attached to his back, Cloud had almost called out Zack's name, before remembering that Zack wasn't there, and this kid was someone else. Other than that, Angeal was probably the easiest to deal with. Mostly  _because_ he was new, and Cloud didn't know a damn thing about him. The fact that he actually  _listened_ was helpful too, though.

He's sat on the edge of base camp, wondering yet again who the hell thought any of this was a good idea - the war, the SOLDIERs, finding this damned Promised Land that the President wouldn't admit didn't exist - at least, not the way he wanted it to - or the time travel business, all of it, really - when a trooper came up to him, nervously, with a piece of paper in their hands.

"New orders, sir," and he absently noted the female voice as he nodded. "You're to take SOLDIER First Class Sephiroth's squad down the river."

Cloud's eyes narrowed, and although for a moment he tenses, wanting to snap as he feels the tension in the entire world hung on a thin thread, he breathes it all out in a sigh.

He hates it. He hates himself, for going along with it. But if he didn't, then... that would be just as bad as letting it all happen, and at least by being involved, he can make sure that casualties stay at a minimum. Both for Shinra, where most of these people didn't have a damn clue what they were even fighting for,  _and_ for Wutai. 

He winces every time he remembers just who it is this war is against. 

 _Sorry, Yuffie,_ he thinks to her, almost wishing she could hear him and understand.  _But if there's any way I can help this come out better than before... that doesn't make it better, though. It doesn't make it right. You'd probably hate me, and I can't say I'd blame you._

...

There's a trap laid in wait not far from the other side of the river, because of course Wutai had known that they were coming, because some of their people had been left behind, and even if nothing else Cloud was known for not leaving anyone behind. It was the least he could do, but sometimes, it really did come back to bite him - and he was never the only one affected by his decisions, now. As if there'd ever been a time when he  _was._

He'd been able to manage everyone into surviving, at least. Mostly helped by the fact that with Sephiroth under his command - and wasn't  _that_ something that he'd never thought would come up - most of the people they went up against who tried to kill them, ended up dead.

It was hard to watch. Both because he knew that the people who were dying were just trying to protect their homeland, and because every time Sephiroth fought, Cloud could see glimpses of the nightmare that he would one day become.

The only consolations were that at fifteen years old, Sephiroth was, like Genesis, shorter, although it was was more long, gangling limbs that anyone else would barely know what to do with, slightly shorter hair, and the fact that not only was the trademark coat gone, but he was wearing the exact same First uniform that he'd remembered Zack wearing. 

The same one they'd tried to get  _him_ to wear, once they'd worn him down to the idea of working for Shinra, or thought they had. 

The other thing that separated past and future, was the fact that Masamune was nowhere in sight yet, and although up until now that had been a  _relief_ , because it was hard enough watching the boy who'd grow into someone he still had  _nightmares_ about-

He only just caught a trace of panic that wasn't his own echoing in his mind, filtering past all of the blocks and barriers he'd put up, a mental link that given his body was still the same one from the future he'd come from, still existed, or existed once more. The details didn't exactly matter when he noticed what the situation was at a glance, a ninja having gotten close enough, Sephiroth having misjudged his strike, and Cloud could see what would happen next almost like a vision.

Instead of letting the opening be taken advantage of however, he found himself having moved fast enough that there was still dust flying in the air between where he was and where he had been, his sword blocking the strike that  _would have_ found its way into Sephiroth's side.

The Wutai ninja took a little more to fall, unconscious more due to the mastered Sleep materia Cloud had taken to carrying with him than the blows to his body or head, and then Cloud had turned to Sephiroth.

Not the Nightmare. Not the Calamity. Not even a  _Remnant._

He was just... a  _kid_.

"Next time you run into trouble, don't just deal with it on your own."  _Tifa, you'd probably smile at that. And then call me a hypocrite._ He almost wished she were there right here and now, but she'd probably have found it harder to get over the fact that this was  _Sephiroth_. Not that Cloud had found it easy himself. "Maybe when you're with other units you're a big deal, but when you're with me, you're under my command, and you're  _my responsibility."_

The look Sephiroth gave him was cool, cold, and if he hadn't felt that swell of panic earlier, then it would have shown perfectly how disdainful the boy found being spoken to like this was.

"I didn't need to be saved," Sephiroth said, standing up without accepting the hand Cloud had held out. "And if I had been injured, then it hardly would have been a serious incident. I would have prevailed, and your concern is well-meaning, but misplaced."

Cloud sighed as the teenaged future silver general walked off, leaving him to wonder what to do with an unconscious Wutai ninja.

...

The next time he sees Sephiroth is actually later that day, because he'd done something he'd have assumed he'd gone  _crazy_ for if he'd told himself just a few days ago that he would - he'd actually called for Sephiroth to come to  _him_.

"Sir."

And, of course, now that the silver-haired demon of Wutai was here, he didn't even know the words for what he wanted to say.

Cloud sighed, and shook his head.

"Do you... even know why I was worried back there?"

Sephiroth frowned.

"Honestly, no." Cloud closed his eyes. Perhaps this would be easier if he pretended it was any one of the other SOLDIERs that he'd had under him at any time.  _Any_ of them. "We've never truly met before this mission, and you seemed to be avoiding my presence for some reason, even though Genesis and Angeal both said that you were a decent military strategist and leader. I had assumed that you held some grudge against me."

 _Some grudge,_ he thought,  _if that isn't ironic, I don't know what is. Tifa would be right - I am a hypocrite. I can't just help someone half-heartedly, after all._

"I said back there," Cloud said slowly, picking his worlds carefully, "while you're under my command, you're my responsibility. I didn't just mean you, either. I meant everyone. All those troopers, all those Seconds and Thirds. I'm the leader, at least, I am here... so that means I look after everyone, and make sure we all get back to base. And if I see something going wrong, I step in. That's what the leader's supposed to do."

Sephiroth didn't say anything for a minute, the frown on his face not lessening one bit.

"We are of equal rank within the SOLDIER program, despite you, as far as I know, having only appeared some months ago. I'm going to be promoted soon, as well. At which point, you will no longer have any command over me."

 _Teenage Sephiroth-speak for 'I'm not a kid, don't treat me like one', huh?_ The thought almost made him laugh, and he shoved it down and out of the way to poke at later. He recognised it all too well from Denzel, and several of the other kids, too.

"If I hadn't stepped in, you'd have been stabbed in your side the moment your balance was off, because you'd misjudged your reach," he said bluntly. Sephiroth's eyes widened a fraction - just enough to know that the message had got through. "You're used to wielding weapons bigger than you are, aren't you?"

The question had come out softly, because this was, if he'd admit it, the first time he'd ever thought of this. All of the different parts of Sephiroth's childhood, and everything that had contributed to what made him  _who he was_ , and he hadn't thought of this one thing in particular before.

He hardly needed to see the slight, almost imperceptible nod, in order to know that it was there. The emotions burned through him in an instant of  _rage and shame born of frustration and who does this man think he is, seeing right through me like that?_ before the heady feelings died down.

"There was no reason to train me in smaller, weaker weapons when I would simply have to unlearn how they handled as soon as I moved on to the real thing."

Cloud nodded, seeing how that could have happened. And also in understanding, since moving from the Buster Sword to something smaller and shorter had always created issues; that was why he'd had the Fusion Sword made.

"You need something with longer reach, or you need to train yourself out of those habits," he said with a vague feeling of detached horror at the words. What was he even  _saying_. As if he needed this younger Sephiroth becoming even more like the one he remembered. "And you need to stop underestimating people."

The slight change in expression told Cloud that what he was getting for that remark was nothing more than just sheer  _stubbornness._

"I do not."

He didn't even bother to stop himself from rolling his eyes. 

"You think you're the best they've ever made, and that makes you untouchable. It doesn't. No one's that powerful. All it takes is a moment when you're off your guard. That's all."

_Sephiroth, with Jenova's head cradled under his arm, not even looking at the trooper or paying him any attention even though Cloud had picked up Zack's Buster Sword, adrenaline helping him carry it and then to stab the man he'd once thought of as a hero. Sephiroth, turning around in shock._

_Sephiroth, so certain of victory that he couldn't even be bothered to go full out, only to end up dead once again, fading back into the lifestream._

_Sephiroth, the kid-_

"And that's when they strike."

Cloud shrugged, trying to dispel the uncomfortable memories. 

"That's... when you let someone else help. And not always in a fight, either."

"I'll try to keep that in mind, then."

_Maybe this'll make a difference._ _Maybe it won't. But I can't just not do anything, even if he is... Sephiroth._

Who'd now decided that the discussion was over, and was walking back to the door of the tent. Stopped, and half turned around, his silver hair mostly hiding his face in an all too familiar way.

"Hojo - and the others - still want to know how you defeated me when we first... met."

" _Hojo_ ," Cloud said, not bothering to hide how much even the name of the man disgusted him, "can come out here and fight me himself, if he wants to know that badly."

_And they can take him home in body bags when I've done, just to make sure he doesn't come back like the cockroach he is._

He almost missed Sephiroth's head nodding again, and an odd noise that might have been a laugh.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the extra scene I'd been thinking of adding even when I finished up the previous chapter. It ended up a little longer than I'd planned, which probably means it's a good thing it's ended up an extra chapter rather than an extra scene. Other than that, it's all pretty much as I'd originally drafted it out in my head.

The church was about about as light inside as the slums were dark, entirely because of the hole in the roof, even though it was a bit smaller than he remembered from when he'd fallen through, back when the the girl he'd met had been older than him, instead of younger.

Cloud could still remember seeing Aerith -  _this_ Aerith, the little girl who looked at him with an open expression and said that his eyes were pretty and invited him for tea parties on the pews and at the altar where he could still remember placing the Buster Sword in the future - hiding when he'd first hidden in the church.

He'd only known she was there because the flowers were, and there'd been a gasp when he'd looked up at a sudden sound, probably a mouse or rat rather than a monster. She'd crept out slowly, still nervous, and said  _who are you?_

In the present, he sat - not on one of the pews, but against the wall, behind one of the columns, the Fusion Sword in its combined state thunking against the stone as he brought his knees up to his chest.

The sounds of war echoed in his ears. Gunshots, screams, the clashing of swords against metal, the desperate shouts for  _someone get a doctor..._

And above all, a silver-haired kid holding a long katana that he'd asked for,  _after Cloud had talked to him._

It wasn't Masmamune. They hadn't found that yet.  _Yet._ It wasn't that long, or that strong, even.

If he closed his eyes, however... he could see them growing, the boy and the sword, a coat making itself visible as it fluttered in the wind and  _fire-_

Cloud gasped, opened his eyes to the still presence of the Sector Five Church with no adult Sephiroth or fire anywhere in sight, and groaned into his hands.

"Mr. Wolf? Are you okay?"

Aerith's voice sounded different, at twelve. But it was still unmistakably her, without doubt. 

No one else called him 'Mr. Wolf' like they were part of some Nibel children's game.

He looked up, blinking at her, wishing for a selfish moment that it was  _his_ Aerith, but his Aerith was left behind in the future even if he sometimes wondered if he could still hear her voice in his dreams, and she was dead, and the girl in front of him was  _alive._

That was important. That was something to hold onto.

He opened his mouth to say something, but the words wouldn't come out, and his hands were still shaking. 

"Did... someone get hurt bad?"

The words, and the worry in her voice, made him start. At first, he shook his head, but then he stopped, eyes and head drooping to the floor - like a wilting flower, she'd probably say.

"People get hurt in war," he said instead, voice sounding distant and cold with how flat it was. "But... no one close. Not really."

Things were quiet for a time. Aerith made a noise that sounded like she understood, and he figured she did, with how he knew her father - Elmyra's husband - had died in the war.

The same war he was fighting in, and sending people to their deaths in.

Cloud  _shuddered._

"So... d'you wanna talk about it? Mom's always said it helps her, and it's helped me, too. But, you don't have to."

For a moment, he really didn't want to. After all, Aerith was  _twelve_ , she didn't know anything about Sephiroth, or Jenova, or Meteor... and if she did, then they were only stories that didn't seem  _real._

He looked back at her, relented, and sighed. Leaned his head back against the wall behind him.

"I... helped someone. And I don't know if I should've."

"Helping people's not bad, is it?"

"I... no." He sighed. "That's not what I meant." Tilted his eyes back towards the ceiling. "I just wish... more people didn't have to die because I didn't want someone to get hurt."

"...yeah."

If it wasn't so quiet, if he hadn't been listening, he might not have heard her. Though, he supposed that if  _anyone_ knew that feeling, it'd be Aerith, even now. She hadn't told him yet, about her parents and that Elmyra wasn't the mother she'd grown up with first, although the few times he'd seen the woman, he thought she'd guessed he knew by now. Even if it was just because he kept an eye out for the Turks as well as the monsters, and he was sure she'd noticed.

Aerith had probably guessed he knew more about her than he was letting on, but neither of them had ever brought it up, and neither of them had pushed things, beyond Cloud letting slip that he knew what the lifestream was, and that the Planet was hurting, not long after they'd first met. 

Sometimes, she said things that he didn't think she'd say to anyone else, and probably only said to him because she knew he'd never tell anyone else. They'd usually come out of the blue, like when she'd said  _the flowers don't really know what to make of you, sometimes they think you're going to step not them and hurt them, but they also like it when you look after them. You're confusing, but I think they like you._

And then, she'd invariably change the subject, to try and cover up that it might not be just the  _flowers_ saying these things, or that it wasn't just a little girl who liked believing in daydreams that had flowers talking to her.

Cloud didn't push that, either. It was good to have even this much.

"I don't think it's wrong." He looked back at her, startled slightly in the sudden break in the silence. "It hurts, but... if you think that person's worth protecting, then shouldn't you do what you can?"

_If that person's worth protecting..._

A flash of Sephiroth appeared in his mind's eye, tall and inhuman - before it was replaced by a shorter kid who definitely  _was_ human, who panicked and talked back at his commanders. Who was proud, but not growing up as arrogant as he could be. Who hated Hojo, and maybe there were seeds there of the hatred he'd get for Shinra in general, but no one had taught him to hate the  _world_ yet. A kid who, thanks to Cloud... was also learning to rely on others.

He'd seen that. In the last few skirmishes they'd been in before moving back.

"Yeah," he said. "I... guess you're right. I'm still..."  _Scared. Terrified._ "I just want there to be an end to the fighting that I can be happy with."

Aerith nodded, and gave him a smile that - to Cloud at least - lit up the whole church.

"That sounds like a good thing to hope for. But for now - do you wanna help water the flowers? You always seem to know just how much they need."

 _Only because I've had so much experience,_ came the unbidden thought, but he couldn't help smiling back, just slightly. 

He left the Fusion Sword leaning against a pew while he knelt on the floor, taking the other watering can around to the other side, and carefully tended the plants with hands that had started to stop shaking.

It wasn't over, but he wasn't quite as worried as he had been before, and the soil, instead of thick with the grit of war, felt soft and smooth and full of life between his fingers.

**Author's Note:**

> There was another scene I'd been thinking of adding on at the end, but either I might decide to add it later, or it might be another addition to the series entirely. I haven't decided yet.


End file.
